


From Tip to Tail

by lockedin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Animal Ears, Anthropomorphic, Body Worship, Bottom John, Embarrassment, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Possessive Sherlock, Rabbits, Sexual Content, Tails, Top Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 20:46:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockedin221b/pseuds/lockedin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John ends up with a pair of rabbit ears and a tail to match. When Sherlock notices how sensitive the latter is, he can't resist a little experimentation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Tip to Tail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrettyArbitrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/gifts).



> Written for PA based on her [lop!John art](http://prettyarbitrary.tumblr.com/post/64522459110/). I told her I wanted to tug John's tail, so I made Sherlock do it for me.
> 
> Big thanks to Oreo for beta'ing this ♥
> 
> And thanks to everyone (especially Leigh) who was patient while I came up with too many puns and bad titles. Some nuggets were:  
> \- Hopping (and) Horny  
> \- Bumming Bunnies  
> \- Lapine and Prone  
> \- Hare-Raising  
> \- Bunny Bits
> 
> and tied for first place: "Hippity Hop, Jump on the Cock" and "Cum Scut"

John declared that, since it was a hopeless endeavour to try and hide the ears, it was useless trying to hide it. Sherlock did not bother pointing out that John had hardly exhausted all options. Instead, he watched his flatmate storm off up to his room, his newly acquired lapine ears flat against the back of his head and neck, and a tuft of fur sticking over the waistline of his trousers.

For three days, John’s condition had remained unaltered. Sherlock had no explanation for how poorly funded, illegally conducted testing in genetic splicing had been successful enough to transform his flatmate. The changes had happened in a matter of hours. The ears were, of course, most readily apparent, but the tail was soon to follow. The latter was also, according to John, more painful. He said it was one thing for body parts you already possessed to change, and another thing to grow something new altogether.

It was the most information Sherlock could manage to get out of him. John refused to be studied like a lab rat. No amount of assurance from Sherlock that John would not be treated as common rodent changed his mind.

So, after three days, John gave up on finding a way to hide his ears and tail. He then spent the next two days more or less holed up in his room. When he emerged for tea on the fifth day since his transformation, the reason for his seclusion became apparent: he had spent most of the previous forty-eight hours altering his clothing to accommodate his tail. Namely, his tail now emerged from a precisely sized hole in his trousers, and probably pants, so that it was the only thing that emerged or was visible beyond the trousers themselves.

“Why bloody rabbits?” he muttered as he went about fixing tea. “Why not a bloody wolf? Then I’d have something useful to tear that son of a bitch a new one.”

“At least it was a lop-eared variety,” Sherlock mused. He didn’t comment on the heavy tapping of John’s heel, or the large portion of raw veg he had with his supper later in the evening.

 

It was down to observation alone, which was nothing new for Sherlock, to discover what John’s transformation entailed aside from the obvious. His hearing was the first to become apparent. The first time he went to tune his violin since the incident, John came storming down the stairs asking why Sherlock always had to make such a racket. When he realised that Sherlock had barely played two notes, neither of them particularly loud, and certainly far from cacophonous, he quite literally turned tail and returned to his room.

His hearing, as it would turn out, was not the only sense that was enhanced. Sherlock came home after hours at Bart’s and was immediately greeted by a disgruntled flatmate.

John glared up from the desk in the lounge, nose crinkled. “Christ, Sherlock. Did you take a bath in the hospital’s whole supply of formaldehyde?”

Sherlock had been studying different ratios of formaldehyde and methanol solutions. He sniffed the cuff of his shirtsleeve, but there was only a faint trace there. “I believe,” he started slowly, knowing any direct observations about John’s new condition was likely to strike a nerve, “more than your appearance was affected by last week’s—encounter.”

“You’re not wrong. I could hear Mrs. Hudson snoring last night.” John’s ears twitched against the side of his head.

“And perhaps your sense of smell?” Sherlock offered.

John looked contemplative for a moment, which was a change from him snapping at Sherlock every time he so much as mentioned his ears or tail. “Maybe it’s the bins I smell. There’s been this stench all day I can’t find.”

“Perhaps Mr. Chatterjee tossed out some meat that’s gone off.”

“Probably.” John shrugged and returned his attention to his computer.

John’s eyesight remained unaltered, as did his sense of taste. Though he certainly began consuming more raw veg, his palate went no other changes otherwise, except for an understandable avoidance of any dish containing rabbit.

There was little else to glean without specific tests, or so Sherlock thought. That assumption was corrected three weeks later, during a case they had in a building next to an orphanage.

John put on a good show of indifference when it came to people staring. He said he was used to it, what with his old limp, and that people could sod off with their judgemental attitudes. As it was, everyone kept their distance, often too confused or frightened to look long, let alone ask John upfront about his inhuman features.

Children, of course, exhibited far fewer inhibitions. They cared far less about, or were entirely ignorant of, social norms and what polite company did or didn’t do. It was something Sherlock appreciated about them. He particularly appreciated them that day.

They were finishing up with the scene. Sherlock was giving the last details to Lestrade before heading back home to do some research on their victim when he year a yelp. He and the DI both turned toward the sound which, surprisingly, had come from John. They caught a small girl running away from John, more terrified than embarrassed.

Embarrassed, however, was exactly what John was. Sherlock told Lestrade he would text before striding over to his flatmate. “What’s wrong?”

“The little shit pulled my tail,” John muttered under his breath as he stuffed his hands into his jacket.

Of all the reactions Sherlock would have expected John to exhibit from having his tail pulled, embarrassment was certainly not high on the list. “Let’s go. We need to find out what our Mrs. Williamson was hiding in her purse.”

“She was hiding something in her purse?” John said with his usual bright-eyed, slack-jawed look as he followed Sherlock.

“Of course she was hiding something in her purse,” Sherlock sighed, holding his hand out for a taxi.

 

For days, Sherlock’s new interest in John had focused heavily on his ears. He had stored away dozens of experiments he would perform ever given the opportunity, on everything from musculature to auditory acuteness. Now, however, his attention shifted solely to John’s tail.

During his initial research on actual rabbits, the tail, while a spectacular addition in appearance, was relatively uninteresting. There were a few basic behaviours and signifiers exhibited through erectness, twitching, and so on, but there was no particular complexity to the average rabbit tail.

The same did not appear to be true for John’s lapine appendage. He began studying the way John would sit, with just enough room between the back of his chair or the sofa to accommodate his tail without appearing, to the unwary onlooker, uncomfortable or ill at ease. He even managed to lean back in cabs with apparent ease, though, in reality, he could not possibly be comfortable with the way his bottom was scooted up in the seat and his shoulders and upper back awkwardly pressed against the faux leather interior.

Sherlock acted gradually. He started by bumping into John in the close confines of the kitchen, or placing the Union Jack pillow in John’s chair. The results from these simple interferences alone were astounding. John leapt clear out of his chair when he sat back unawares against the pillow. During one bump in the kitchen, he actually squeaked.

However, his tests came to a halt when he chanced a slight pinch during one bump in the stairwell. John was not fooled. He glared at Sherlock over his shoulder before stomping up to the flat.

“I was starting to wonder if you’d really become so clumsy lately,” John snapped as soon as they were both inside. “Ignoring personal space by close proximity is one thing, but this is something else.”

Sherlock hung up his coat and scarf before looking at John. “I was merely curious about the-”

“Fuck you and your curiosity. This isn’t—it’s not—Christ, Sherlock, it’s like copping a feel!”

“Is it?” Sherlock said with less sensitivity to the subject than he immediately realised he should be showing. At John’s darkening expression, he tried to backtrack. “I apologise, John. I did not mean-”

“You did mean to, so don’t lie about it to my face.” John strode over to his chair and sat down, only to shout and immediately jump back up. He snatched the pillow from his chair and chucked it at Sherlock. “And stop leaving this ruddy thing in my chair!”

Sherlock caught the pillow and stared at it a moment. He deposited it on the sofa and went to his own chair. “I’m curious.”

“You’re going to be a curious cat if you keep it up,” John muttered.

Sherlock frowned in confusion. “What do cats have to do with this?”

“You know, curiosity- Sod it, never mind.” John picked his laptop off the end table.

“John.”

“I’m pissed at you, Sherlock. Now is not a good time to talk.”

Sherlock stood up and walked over to stand directly in front of John, their legs only a couple centimetres apart. He pushed the laptop closed.

“What is wrong with you today?”

“You’re not listening.”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. Using me to quench your scientific curiosity is not an option. End of.” John tried opening his laptop again, but Sherlock yanked it from his hands and put it back on the end table. “What the hell?”

“Listen to me!”

John glared up at Sherlock, every muscle in his body tense. His ears had never been flatter. “Fine. I’m listening.”

“My curiosity in you is not wholly scientific. In fact, science has very little to do with my interest.”

John blinked. His ears lifted almost imperceptibly from their flattened position. “What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sherlock, allowing himself to act on impulse, reached out and stroked his fingers lightly down one of John’s ears. “My interest in you has rarely included a scientific element. It has always been of a more—personal nature.”

After a stunned moment, John batted Sherlock’s hand away. “Whatever this is, you’re not going to fool me into going along with your experiments or forgiving you.”

“I don’t want you to forgive me!” Sherlock closed his eyes a moment. “I do want your forgiveness, John, but not for the reasons you’re imagining.” He looked again. John still wore a mixture of annoyance and confusion. He leaned forward and braced his hands on the arms of the chair. “Perhaps if I put it this way: the only experiments I want to conduct on you would take place in my bed.”

Both of John’s ears unflattened completely. If they had not had a lop-eared’s genetic coding, they would probably have been point straight up and swivelled in Sherlock’s direction. John’s cheeks were noticeably flushed, and his breath caught for a moment. “Huh?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and heaved a great sigh. “John Watson, I want to fuck you.”

John swallowed. “Because I’ve grown rabbit bits?”

Sherlock leaned into the arms of the chair and laughed.

“Not because I’ve grown rabbit bits then,” John muttered, looking away from Sherlock.

Sherlock swallowed the rest of his laughter and took John’s chin in hand, turning his face back. He leaned forward and pressed a plain kiss to his lips. He whispered against John’s skin, “Because you’re John Watson.”

John pressed his hands against Sherlock’s shoulders and pushed him back. It was without aggression or even with particular force. “Then why now? Out of nowhere?”

“Your failure to observe does not make my actions spontaneous. While your new physiology adds intrigue, I’ve desired you for quite some time.” He curled his fingers under John’s chin. “I want to fuck you, John. I want you in my bed and I want to take you. I want to take you apart and put you back together when it’s over. I want to do it tonight and tomorrow night and every night after until I’ve taken you apart every conceivable way, and then I want to start over.”

John’s pupils dilated exponentially as Sherlock spoke. When he finally realised Sherlock was waiting for an answer, all he managed at first was, “Oh.”

Sherlock brushed his thumb along John’s jaw. “I have a rather persistent erection forming in my trousers right now, John, so I would appreciate something more definite than ‘oh’ at this point.”

John’s eyes flickered involuntarily down, if only for a moment. “Sherlock, I- What am I supposed to say?”

“Yes or no: may I fuck you?”

Once again, John swallowed hard. Then he provided a single nod.

“Excellent.” Sherlock kissed him again, harder this time, but still brief. In the span of that short kiss, though, his fingers left John’s chin to fist into his jumper and pull him up. He dragged John through the kitchen and hall back to his bedroom, where he slammed the door shut and pushed John onto the bed.

John winced and pushed himself up to sit. “Tail,” he muttered by way of explanation.

“It’s really that sensitive?” Sherlock toed off his shoes and socks and began unbuttoning his shirt.

John began taking off his own shoes and socks. “I haven’t been able to sleep on my back since. For the first few nights, I kept waking up every time I accidentally rolled onto it.” He started to lift his jumper away.

Sherlock, his shirt hanging open now, grabbed John’s wrists and pulled his hands aside. “I said, I want to take you apart.”

John lowered his hands.

Sherlock’s eyes drifted to the long ears now lax beside John’s head. They were a faintly more golden colour than John’s hair. He stroked both of them slowly, and was pleased to see John’s eyelids slide closed. He lifted one ear and kissed the soft tip. The skin beneath the fur twitched—nearly shuddered.

He peeled away the jumper, but left the vest in place for the moment. He traced John’s neck with a finger, following the dip to the centre of his clavicle. He watched John’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed with anticipation. Sherlock pressed his hand against the back of John’s neck and leant forward, dipping his tongue into the hollow of John’s throat. He memorised the taste, eager to compare when it was soaked with perspiration.

Sherlock unfastened John’s belt and trousers, sliding his fingertips below the waistband to trace the edge of his pants. Then he pulled away the vest. The scar was something John had allowed Sherlock to study up close before, but now the soldier shuddered under Sherlock’s lighter, far more intimate touch as it ghosted across the pale knotted flesh.

“At this point,” Sherlock said quietly as his eyes and fingers trailed across John’s torso, “I would lay you back to remove your trousers. However, your tail complicates that plan of action.”

John didn’t say anything. He stood and, after a brief hesitation, turned around.

Sherlock admired the forwardness, though perhaps that was the wrong word for John’s bold behaviour. He swept the palm of his hand over the tail, which was flicking from side to side. At Sherlock’s touch however, it stilled. Mostly. It was still twitching as Sherlock eased it gently through the hole John had crafted in his trousers. While he was at it, Sherlock guided it through the hole in John’s pants as well, though he left the elastic band just below the tail for the moment. He pushed the trousers down until they were low enough to fall and pooled at John’s feet.

He ran his thumb from the top of the tail up John’s spine to his nape. He spread his fingers and combed them up through John’s hair, against the grain as it were. John shivered.

Sherlock shed his shirt, trousers, and pants with far more efficiency than he was stripping John. Once naked, he finally pushed down John’s pants. He rested his hands against the slight curve of John’s hips and guided him out of the pile of his clothes. The tail was wiggling furiously again. Sherlock turned John around and sighed at the sight of him.

John stood before him, completely bare—of clothes, of walls, and, at last, of hesitation. He cupped his hands against Sherlock’s face and leant up to kiss him. He tasted Sherlock’s lips freely before pushing his tongue past them, and then he tasted Sherlock’s mouth without inhibition. He, too, had wanted this for a long time, and it had taken a great deal of will and patience for Sherlock not to force him to see this. It was proving worth the wait.

When they needed to breathe, Sherlock swept his tongue against his lips and John’s while they were still close. He manoeuvred John back onto the bed, this time laying him on his side down the length of the bed. He gave the closest ear another stroke before turning to dig out his bottle of lube. He paused with momentary uncertainty. “I don’t have any condoms. I’m clean, but-”

“So am I.” John looked over his shoulder at Sherlock. “I got tested after Annie cheated on me, and I haven’t been with anyone since her.”

“You’re alright, then, if I don’t use one?”

“Do I look like I care?”

He didn’t. His body, laid before Sherlock on Sherlock’s own bed, looked—aside from the excited tail—entirely at ease. He looked like he belonged there, had always belonged there, had always existed for Sherlock. 

Sherlock lowered himself onto the bed behind John. He smoothed his hand down John’s side, from ribs to rump. He leaned over and kissed his shoulder, and then his mouth. John reached back and buried his fingers in Sherlock’s curls. The second Sherlock popped the cap of the bottle, John broke away, breathing shallowly, and rolled onto his stomach, thighs spread.

Sherlock didn’t want to simply memorise this, categorise it to review later—though he most definitely would review it. He wanted to savour it, to appreciate fully the man splayed across his bed for him. The unadulterated trust.

He stroked John’s tail again, and again momentarily slowed to a subtle twitch. Sherlock slicked his fingers with lube. “Up,” he said, a gentle command. John shimmied onto his knees, head still down, raising his arse into the air. Sherlock drew a hard line down his perineum, eliciting a soft whine. He circled the hole with his thumbs until the muscles relaxed under his touch.

At the first penetration, John took a shuddering breath and gathered one of Sherlock’s pillows to his face. Sherlock moved slowly, tracing invisible curves in John’s back to help ease him into the touch opening him up. Unfortunately, he needed to regularly soothe the excited tail to keep it from interfering.

When John was open and slicked and fairly panting, Sherlock moved between his calves. He pressed only the very head in at first, but already it had John moaning. Sherlock dragged his fingers down John’s ribcage and ended with a tight grip on the slight curve where waist became hips, and he pushed in.

His own groans matched John’s in a chorus of pleasure. It had been a long time since Sherlock had had sex, and never had he penetrated someone unprotected. Now here he was—here they were—flesh inside flesh, no barrier between them. Sherlock folded himself over John’s back, the tail pressing against his pelvis, and kissed him between his shoulder blades. Then he bit down, scraping his teeth along John’s flesh, and thrust. That first cry he pulled from John’s mouth in that moment would stay with him forever, more beautiful than any concerto.

Sherlock straightened up. He kept one hand fastened on John’s hip, but with the other he gripped the incessantly moving tail. John squeaked and shivered.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” John said, his voice hoarse. “Sensitive.”

Sherlock gave a little tug, and John whimpered. He tugged again, this time thrusting in the same moment, dragging a high whine from John’s chest.

“Are you just going to tease me?” John said, trying not to sound like he was begging. It was a valiant effort, but ultimately futile.

“I said I wanted to take you apart. Now I’m going to.” He wanted to try everything, test every centimetre of John’s skin, elicit every possible reaction. However, his own body was straining his resolve. He would have to do this on many more occasions and try a new touch every time. For now, he took pleasure in the ways he had already learned to make John squirm.

He thrust and tugged in time again, and again. He took John slow and hard and mercilessly, until John was writhing beneath him and there was hardly any break in the so very lovely noises he made. Then Sherlock continued to take him, increasing his speed in small increments.

John’s ears were splayed to either side of his face, which was turned slightly for the air he could barely gasp into his lungs. He was covered in sweat, the low curve of his back glistening. Even his tail was dampening in Sherlock’s hand. It had long since stopped its fervent twitching in Sherlock’s hand, but it remained just as sensitive.

“Touch yourself,” Sherlock said.

“Can’t,” John moaned. Indeed, every muscle in his body was likely exhausted at this point. It was a credit to his stamina that he could even keep himself propped up on his knees.

Sherlock hadn’t thought to keep track of time. He ought to do that next time. For now, he relinquished his hold on John’s tail and moved it to his hot, leaking cock. He didn’t dare release his grip on John’s hip with the man in this state. If he did, John might really collapse, and Sherlock might slip out, and the entire moment would be ruined.

Sherlock pumped John’s cock with the same steady thrusts of his own, and the sonata came alive once more.

“Please,” John cried, half into the pillow.

It was the first time he truly asked, truly begged, and so Sherlock obliged. He quickened his pace dramatically, much to his own body’s relief, and in moments John was coming over his hand and bedcovers, the most exquisite scream as accompaniment.

Sherlock let go of John’s cock as soon as he started to come and returned to his tail, John’s own come coming off in the fur. Sherlock rode through the pressure of John’s body clenching in orgasm, and he kept riding after it began to dissipate and John’s knees started to give out. Sherlock wouldn’t lose this, not so close. He held John’s hips with both hands, and he held his arse up as he slammed into it repeatedly until he came with a long, low groan.

He forgot he wasn’t wearing a condom. When he pulled out, he was entranced by his come trickling out of John and down his thigh. He pressed his finger inside him, circling through it and pressing lightly against John’s oversensitive prostate, making him gasp.

Sherlock released John’s hips, and the man flattened against the mattress, legs splayed on either side of Sherlock. His tail drooped over his arse, and Sherlock stroked the top gently. He moved outside John’s legs and lay on his side next to John. He switched between petting John’s hair and his nearest ear.

When John finally gathered himself enough, he muttered into the pillow, “I won’t be able to walk for a day.”

“Oh, two at least.” Sherlock smiled when John turned his head to glare half-heartedly at him.

“Was the tail bit necessary?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Was it not pleasurable?”

John’s already flushed face turned redder and he buried his face back in the pillow.

“I should warn you, there’s a bit of a mess in it.”

“What?” John pushed himself up into a thighs-spread kneeling position and looked over his shoulder at his tail. One ear drooped down his back, and the other caught on his shoulder. “Do you know how hard it is to clean that thing? It’s impossible to see properly!”

Sherlock stroked the bright handprint bruise forming on John’s hip. “Perhaps I could be of some assistance in that.”

John flopped back onto his stomach. “Better, you git. It’s your fault it’s a mess.”

“You made quite the mess of my bed.”

“You wanted me in your bed in the first place.” John looked at Sherlock and grinned.

“Yes, I very much did.” Sherlock lifted himself on his forearm. He put a hand on John’s shoulder and rolled him onto his side. He leant forward and tasted the cooled sweat in the hollow of John’s throat. When he backed away and met John’s eyes, he spoke in as low a baritone as he could manage, “And I don’t ever expect you to leave it.”


End file.
